Quake response in Syria faces obstacles, says top UN aid official
Beirut, LebanonReuters A top UN humanitarian official said damage to roads, fuel shortages and harsh winter weather in Syria were hampering the agency’s response to an earthquake on Monday that killed more than 1,200 in the country and left millions in need of aid. The huge tremor, which also left more than 2,300 people dead […]
Sight-Seeing: Not all who harm the church are wolves. Some are renegade sheep.
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR, in an article first published on Religion News Service, argues that the distinction is important…
Explainer: Why was the Turkey-Syria earthquake so bad?
London, UKReuters The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday is likely to be one of the deadliest this decade, seismologists said, with a more than 100 kilometre rupture between the Anatolian and Arabian plates. Here is what scientists said happened beneath the earth’s surface and what to expect in the aftermath: […]
Ukraine’s main Catholic church moves Christmas to 25th December in pivot to West
Kyiv, Ukraine Reuters Ukraine’s main Catholic church said on Monday it would move to a new calendar that would see Christmas celebrated on 25th December rather than 7th January, amid an effort by Ukrainian institutions to break cultural links to Russia. The move by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which counts just under a tenth […]
Updated: Major earthquake kills 3,700 in Turkey and Syria, weather hits survivors
Updated: 9:10am, 7th February, 2023 (AEST)Kahramanmaras, Turkey/Damascus, SyriaReuters A huge earthquake killed more than 3,700 people across a swathe of Turkey and north-west Syria on Monday, with freezing winter weather adding to the plight of the thousands left injured or homeless and hampering efforts to find survivors. The magnitude 7.8 quake brought down whole apartment […]
Chile battles deadliest wildfires on record as heatwave grips
Santaigo, ChileReuters Chilean firefighters were battling to hold back forest fires on Monday as authorities said hot and dry weather would continue this week, potentially exacerbating what are already the deadliest blazes in the country’s recent history. The fires, which have consumed 270,000 hectares of land, have killed 26 people so far in south-central Chile, […]
Turkey quake rescue teams comb through wreckage of Iskenderun hospital
Iskenderun, Turkey Reuters Rescue teams on Monday were searching through the wreckage of the state hospital in Iskenderun, Turkey, that was partly flattened by a huge earthquake that has already claimed almost 3,000 lives. As darkness fell, a wounded person was pulled out of the rubble and taken away on a stretcher. The rescuers climbed […]
Earthquake piles misery on war-ravaged Syrians in wintry north
Jandaris, Syria Reuters Wailing children, flattened buildings and hospitals full of bodies – a devastating earthquake on Monday looked painfully familiar for Syrian families and rescuers worn down by nearly 12 years of bombardment and displacement. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake sent people rushing into the streets in the country’s north, where air strikes and shelling […]
Lebanon hopes UNESCO danger listing could save crumbling modernist fairground
Tripoli, Lebanon Reuters Its arch is cracking and its vast pavilions lie empty, but the crumbling Rachid Karami International Fair in Lebanon’s port city Tripoli now has hope of revival, having been added to the United Nations’ list of world heritage sites in danger. Designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1962, the collection of […]
US military says it is searching for remnants of Chinese spy balloon
Washington DC, US Reuters The US military said on Sunday it is searching for remnants of the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon it shot down the previous day, in a dramatic spy saga that has further strained American-Chinese relations. The US Navy is working to recover the balloon and its payload and the Coast Guard is […]